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 CONSTANTINOPLE

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CONSTANTINOPLE

two years (341-339 B. c.) it held out against Philip of Macedon. It succeeded in maintaining its independ- ence even against victorious Rome, was granted the title and rights of an allied city, and its ambassadors were accorded at Rome the same honoui-s as those given to allied kings; it enjoyed, moreover, all transit duties on the Bosporus. Cicero defended it in the Roman Senate, and put an end to the exactions of Piso. Later on, the Roman emperors entrusted the government of the city to prisetors, at once civil and military magistrates, who maintained, however, the earlier democratic forms of government. For a while Vespasian placed it under the Governor of Moesia. The city continued prosperoas to the reign of Septi- mius Severus, when it sided with his rival, Pescennius Niger. After a siege of three years (193-196) Severus razed to the ground its walls and public monuments, and made it subject to Perinthus or Heraclea in Thrace. But he soon forgave this resistance, restored its former privileges, built there the batlis of Zeuxippus, and began the hippodrome. It was devastated again by the soldiers of Gallienus in 262, but was rebuilt almost at once. In the long war between Constantine and Licinius (314-323) it embraced the fortunes of the latter, but, after his defeat at Chrysopolis (Scutari), submitted to the victor.

The Christian City. — It has quite lately been es- tablished that Byzantium received its new name of Constantinople as early as the end of 324 (Centenaire de la society nationale des antiquaires de France, Paris, 1904, p. 281 sqq.). Nevertheless, the solemn inauguration of the new city did not occur until 11 May, 330; only after this date did the Court and Government settle permanently in the new capital. It was soon filled with sumptuous edifices like those of Rome; like the latter it was situated on seven hills and divided into fourteen regions; in the matter of privileges also it was similar to Rome. Among the new public buildings were a senate house, forvmis, a eapitol, circuses, porticoes, many churches (particu- larly that of the Holy Apostles destined to be the burial-place of the emperors). The most beautiful statues of antiquity were gathered from various parts of the empire to adorn its public places. In general the other cities of the Roman world were stripped to embellish the "New Rome", destined henceforth to surpass them all in greatness and magnificence. Traces of Christianity do not appear here before the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. In 212 TertiJlian commemorates the joy of the Chris- tians at the defeat of Pescennius Niger ("Ad Scapu- 1am", iii: "Cscilius Capella in illo exitu Byzantino: Christiani gaudete"). About 190, an Antitrinitarian heretic, Theodotus the Currier, a native of Byzantium, was expelled from the Roman Church (" Philosophou- mena", VIII, xxxv; St. Epiphanius, "Adv. Ha-r.," liv). A probably reliable tradition makes the Byzan- tine Church a suffragan of Heraclea in Thrace at the beginning of the third century. In the fifth century we meet with a spurious document attributed to a certain Dorotheus, Bi-shop of Tyre at the end of the third century, according to which the Church of By- zantium was founded by the Apostle St. Andrew, its first bishop being his disciple Stachys (cf. Rom., xvi, 9). The intention of the forger is plain: in this way the Clmrch of Rome is made inferior to that of Con- stantinople, St. Andrew having been chosen an Apostle by Jesus before his brother St. Peter, the foimder of the Roman Church.

The first historically known Bishoi) of Byzantium is St. Mftrophanes (30G-314), though the see had per- haps been occupied during the third century. It was at first subject to the metropolitan authority of Her- aclea, and remained .so. at least ranonieally, until 381, when the Second fficumeuieal ('oinicil (can. iii) gave the Bishop of ( 'onstantinople the first place after the Bishop of Rome. (For the exact meaning of this

canon see Hefele, Hist, des Counciles, tr., Leclercq, Paris. 1908, II, 24-27.) Fuller details are given in Fi.scher, " De patriarcharumConstantinopolitanorum" catalogis ( Leipzig, 1894) ; Schermann, " Propheten- imd Apostellegenden nebst Jungerkatalogen des Doro- theus und verwandter Texte" (Leipzig, 1907); Vailhe, "Origines de I'Eglise de Constantinople" in "Echos d'Orient" (Paris, 1907), 287-295.

Constantine had chosen this city as the new capital of the Roman Empire, but owing to his wars and the needs of the State, he rarely resided there. His suc- cessors were even more frequently absent. Constan- tius, Julian, Jovian, and Valens are found more habitually on the Danube or the Euphrates than on the Bosporus ; they reside more regularly in Antioch than in New Rome. It was only under Theodosius the Great (379-95) that Constantinople assumed definitive rank as capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. However, its ambitious prelates did not wait so long to forecast the future greatness of the new city. In 339 Eusebius, and in 360 Eudoxius, quitted the great Sees of Nicomedia and Antioch for what was yet, canonically, a simple bishopric. Both the city and its inhabitants suffered much during the Arian controversies; the .\rian heretics held posses- sion of the Church for forty years. Honourable men- tion is due to two of its bishops: St. Alexander, whose resistance and prayers were crowned by the sudden death of .•Vrius in Constantinople; and St. Paul the Confessor, a martyr for the Faith. We must add the eighty martyrs put to death simultaneously by Em- peror Valens. St. Gregory of Nazianzus restored religious peace in this Church early in the reign of the aforesaid Theodosius. From the council of 381 may be said to date the ecclesiastical fortunes of Constan- tinople. Its bishop began thenceforth to claim and to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the six provinces of Thrace, hitherto subject to Heraclea, and soon over the twenty-two provinces of Asia Minor and Pontus, originally subject to Ephesus and Ciesarea. These rights of supremacy, though usurped, were acknowledged by the twenty-eighth canon of the Council of Chalcedon (451), from which time the bishops of Constantinople ruled over about 420 dioceses. In 431 began an almost continuous conflict with the Roman Church, that was crowned with success in 733, when an Iconoclast emperor withdrew from the jurisdiction of Rome all ecclesias- tical lUyricum, i. e. more than a hundred dioceses. About the end of the ninth century, when Photius broke with the Roman Church, his own patriarchate included 624 dioceses (51 metropolitan sees, 51 ex- empt archbishoprics, and 522 suffragan bishoprics). At that time the Roman Church certainly did not govern so great a number of sees. At this period, moreover, by its missionaries and its political influ- ence, Constantinople attracted to Christianity the Slav nations, Serbs. Russians, Moravians, and Bul- gars, and obtained in these northern lands a strong support against the Roman and Prankish West.

This ecclesiastical prosperity coincided with the political and municipal grandeur of the city. At the death of Theodosius the Great (395), when the Roman Empire was divided into two parts. Constantinople remained the centre and capital of the Eastern Em- pire. The Western Empire was destined soon to fall before the onslaughts of the barbarians. While its provinces were held by uncouth German tribes. Con- stantinople alone remained to represent Christian civilization and the greatness of the Roman name., Simultaneously the city was enlarged and embellished,.] particularly un<ier Theodosius II, Justinian, Hera- clius, and Basil the Macedonian. In 413 it reached its actual (190S) size on the right bank of the Golden Horn, under the city prefect, Anthemius. In 625 Heraclius added the famous quarter of BlachemiB with its venerated church of the Bles.sed Virgin, whose